Eric Leaver looks at East Lancashire

TODAY, Blackburn's newest retail park is nearing completion on this town-centre site, but 30 years ago this month when this picture was taken of the 10-acre weed-filled wedge between Park Road at the left and Great Bolton Street it had been lying desolate for more than two years and most of the area had been cleared by demolition for over a year longer.

The spot - originally the open fields of the Town's Moor that in the early 19th century marked the limit of Blackburn's built-up area - lacked redevelopment for so long because plans for a new Inner Ring Road ended up being deferred (as they still are!) and also because in 1969 it was considered possible that the route of the then proposed Calder Valley highway, which became today's M65 motorway, might go through Blackburn and cross the cleared site.

By contrast , it is now undergoing its second revamp in the intervening period, with closure of the the former British Gas depot and offices at Russell Street, which occupied most of the area, being announced in 1994 and followed by their demolition last year to make way for the new retail development.

Opposite, across Park Road, the Blackburn Arena ice stadium and new retail outlets have taken the place of the housing and industry seen in this view.

Also vanished from the scene is Christ Church at Grimshaw Park, whose 148-ft spire dominates the skyline. The 113-year-old building was pulled down in 1972 after a losing battle against dry rot, but has been replaced by a new building on the same spot. It was originally occupied by a Sunday School which opened in 1826 - at a time when then-isolated Grimshaw Park was made up of two communities, consisting mainly hand-loom weavers and quarrymen, who were divided by the canal and, according to a centenary history of Christ Church, by frequent fights.

The location was also racked a month after the Sunday School opened by riots in which a mob armed with stones and pikes - angry at the threat to the cottage weavers' living brought by the new power loom - overcame soldiers guarding a mill on the canal bank and destroyed all its looms.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.